There is a wrenching, ear-piercing roar as the watery ground explodes in a cacophony of fangs and mouths. It rains dirty water and blood for thirty seconds as the black mass bursts in ascension. The giant worm-like creature spans several stories high, and at least four wide. It sways and calls, the entire earth vibrating with nauseous tremors.

It knows I am standing here. I have stared at it several times before.

It is despair. It is a solemn, godless parasite with no purpose in my psyche or the spiritual realm except to inflict pain.

I am desert power, because I can call it. Because I look down and I see the incarnation of self-sadism. And I know if I step off this ledge, and drown myself on its blackened husks, I will know my torments again. I will bleed slowly as whispers fill my ears of the horrid things I have done and will do. I will feel vibrant, keening emotion like a dull knife stretched underneath my skin. And I will suffer, and I will absolve myself of my perceived sins.

But I cannot move. She is next to me. I see her eyes, like Caribbean waters, the irises dilated but firm. Her representation just looks at me. This has not happened before. And there are deafening wails and her eyes.

And I make a choice.

The ground crumples in on itself. My instinct is gone with a sudden sucking rumble, my escape nowhere to be seen as silence unhinges its jaw once more to croon its melody.

I am looking at her. Her aspect changes and I see. My forehead is a creased and my eyes wander and wonder why, or how, or when.

Standing next to me, feet upon the black-gray mud by the dead oak tree, she takes my hand. I have made a choice. And what her eyes hold terrifies part of me more than that creature, any thing, I have ever encountered. It is the keenest fear that can dispel all others. But there is much more. There is balance, even in the darkness. She smiles.

Standing on a promontory, in a dead land of my own making, I am not alone.

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